BBC betas interactive video

The BBC has posted what it calls a beta in interactive video which explores the fall-out from the Deepwater-Horizon oil distaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

The video has hotspots and triggers throughout which you can click on to explore more information in the form of video and info-graphics associated with the main narrative.

It’s an interesting attempt but sadly it fails on a number of levels:

  • The triggers are obtrusive and clunky;
  • You cannot turn the interactivity on and off;
  • You cannot control the supplementary videos, apart from closing them;
  • The audio triggers are totally unnecessary and break up the narrative, adding to the clunkiness;
  • You cannot bookmark/personalise content, or mark it for later viewing;
  • It took EIGHT people to produce it;
  • It’s made in Flash so is already obsolete.

On top of this there were prototyping projects being run by the BBC ten years ago using MPEG4 which were far better than this and allowed personalisation, but which never seemed to go any further.

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